


Wild Geese

by therudestflower



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: But also some fluff I HOPE, Economic crises are hard, F/M, Gen, Holiday Season, Jess stayed with him when even tech phobes like Luke were starting to have wifi this is canon, Luke Danes did not have WiFi in 2001, Returning Home, Strained Parental Relationship, Taking Jess Mariano as a whole seriously, Taking Liz Danes' characterization seriously, Trying to get on your uncle's wifi is hard, Young aduthood is hard, but seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27753991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therudestflower/pseuds/therudestflower
Summary: Jess needs a safety net--as much as he loathes to admit it. The publishing house folds and Jess has no desire to live in his car again, so he calls on the most reliable person he knows. Luke is there with a place to stay, unsolicited advice, and possibly WiFi. More than enough for him to get the chance to drum up some cash.The proximity of Luke's apartment to every other inch of Stars Hollow is a slight complicating factor.
Relationships: Luke Danes & Jess Mariano, Luke Danes/Lorelai Gilmore
Comments: 20
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

The publising house folded a month after Jess became too old to live out of his car. It just happened one day. A few days after his twenty-fourth birthday, Jess realized that he was never willing to live out of his car again, and by coincidence, that was the day they decided to close the business. 

The death of Trudgeon Books was drawn out. Doing things the correct, adult way was drawn out. They had to contact all their collaborators with the news and soothe their fragile egos. Equipment had to be sold. Their apartment had to be packed up and vacated. The website had to be updated. Vendor contracts canceled. Matthew had to be talked out of a suicide attempt at least once a day. Chris was convinced they could turn it around. 

There were some good parts. The kind of moments that Jess thought he’d put in a memoir if he grew more egotistical and self-indulgent in his old age. As they got desperate to bring revenue to save Trucheon they got weirder. They distributed zines about the _Golden Girls,_ and homoerotic surfers. In a wild twist of fate, Jess suggested karaoke nights and found himself MCing. Matthew kindly took a video of his awkward attempts to rally excitement uploaded and it to YouTube, which somehow resulted in Jess his latest book being discussed on NPR. 

The internet age was weird, and royalties boost aside, Jess wasn’t necessarily a fan. 

Their last blowout was two nights before their lease ended. Since before Jess came on board, Matthew and Chris had been cutting the truly awful lines out of books and zines in their collection and stringing them together. On the last night before someone came to buy the furniture downstairs, they invited their better-humored friends over and Mathew stood on a table and recited every ugly phrase they’d published, turned into not-quite-a-poem, not-quite-a-story. 

“It is with great hope and regret,” Matthew finished, flung wide with drama, “that I leave this here cobbler store, and start my delicatessen. May my shoes be spongy with air, and the rain only hit the right side of my body.” 

It was a fucking good night. 

The last night, though, was not good. In all his stoicism and insisting he knew how to handle a disaster, Jess made no follow-up plans. He had $780 in his bank account. It would have been a fortune four years ago, but now it was not nearly enough to start a new life. Not if he didn’t want to sleep in his car. 

In the life of Jess Mariano, pending homelessness was just a matter of course. Nothing to freak out about. Jess had come into adulthood under the understanding that running out of money, and losing housing, was an inevitable part of life. Even brief weeks that Truncheon was in the black, he saw it coming.

When they’d get evicted, or kicked out, or ran, Liz always handled it the same way. She had a twofold plan. First, she would show up at the door of one of her weird friend's apartments “just to visit.” She was an expert at the foot-in-the-door method. They’d sit and talk, then Liz would tearfully mention that she had nowhere to sleep, her and her kid. Before said friend knew what was happening, Liz and Jess had been sleeping on their floor for a month and a half. 

The second step of the plan was that Liz would meet a series of “really great guys” and disappear into them until she came out with _the one._ “The one” being the guy so unstable that he welcomed his girlfriend of three days and her odd son to live with him. Her plan went _perfectly_ each time. What could go wrong?

Jess bore the months of dismantling the business with so much stoicism and calm that he reached the night before the lease ended without a plan. Twofold or one fold. Or any fold. 

Staring at his mostly packed bedroom, Jess felt acutely how very much too old he was to live out of his car. As insane as his mother was, and as unpleasant as her twofold plans sometimes were, Jess was never scared they’d end up on the street. She always got a roof over his head. Seriously, he’d have to kill himself if he was less capable of adult life than _Liz._

He did not want to live out of his car. Not to mention his four boxes of books, and two boxes of CDs couldn’t fit. 

Once settled somewhere, Jess always had a bad habit of accumulating belongings beyond what he could make a mad dash with. Back when he was a kid, he used to have sobbing meltdowns every time Liz forced him to to get rid of anything that didn’t fit in a box and backpack. Jess had been past that for a long time, but as his heart beat hard as he packed his fourth box of books, he wondered if maybe the crying on the floor was going to make a reappearance. 

“Yo,” Matthew said from the doorway of his bedroom. He held up two thick books. “You still collecting Odyssey translations?” 

Jess groaned and walked over to take a look. There was one standard copy that he suspected was assigned to Matthew in high school, but one was a Walter James Miller that had been eluding him. Jess handed him the high school once and walked back to his latest book box with the Miller. “Take one of my books, please. Or ten.” 

“Dude, my dad is bugging enough already about me crashing in my old room, I can’t show up with a million boxes.” 

He sighed and reached in the open box, coming up with the Adrienne Rich books he had no attachment to. “Here, expand your creepy feminist poetry collection. I know you have one.” 

“Well yeah, Plath shouldn’t be anyone's end all,” Matthew looked up from his book with a bright expression. “Hey, maybe we can start a publishing house just for feminist lit.” 

“Oh yeah,” Jess said, “our problem was catering to too many audiences." 

Matthew’s face fell. “Right.” 

“We can try it when the recession ends,” Jess offered, returning to culling books from his box to force on Matthew.

“Still sucks, dude. What did we do wrong?” 

Jess rolled his eyes and held a book of poetry about skateboarding, and an old typewriter manual out behind him for Matthew to take. “Nothing. We weren’t even supposed to last this long. We did great.” 

He resented Matthew for being such a mess and forcing him into this role. Owning a small business with two people very different than him had forced Jess into a number of social skills and stamina for bullshit like this. 

“Hey,” Mathew said. Jess turned around. “Hey, have you figured out what you’re going to do yet?” 

“Eh,” Jess hedged. “Stay in a motel. Meet some miserable people. Get material for my next book.” He had enough money for a week, two if Jess wasn’t now too bougie to stay in a by the hour motel. 

Matthew hit him with a mournful look. Matthew was born too bougie for any kind of motel. “No. Dude. No. Stay with me. Or, actually, stay with my dad. He’s mad at me, but if you’re there he’d have to be less mad because you’re company?” 

“Gosh, as tempting as that is.” 

“But you--” 

“Stop.” 

Matthew held his hands up in surrender. “Look, me and Chris, we know your family situation. That you can’t count on anyone but you can count on us.” 

The fuck? “You don’t have to worry about my family.” 

“Yeah we do, after that night--that, that it all came tumbling out like loose change--” 

Jess couldn’t fucking wait to not live with a poet. “Dude. Stop. Not to kill your bohemian self-image, but I’m more adept at this shit than you guys. I’m not worried.” 

Matthew winced. “You keep saying that. But you seem worried. And crabby.” 

“I’m always crabby. Relax,” Jess said, stepping toward Matthew to force him out of the room. 

“Seriously. You’re not alone. We’ll be your family--” Jess closed the door on his face. 

And where did Matthew get off saying Jess had no one to rely on? He’d _met Luke._ Luke was the most reliable person on the East Coast. Embarrassingly reliable. To the point of a character fault, reliable. 

Would help if Jess called, reliable. 

Jess sat down on his bed next to his fourth box of books, searching for anything he could get rid of and coming up empty. He didn’t want to get rid of everything he owned again. He was twenty-four years old. Too old for--

Jess was allowed to be too old to let his life fall to shit. He did not deserve for his life to fall to shit, and he certainly didn’t have to help it happen.

At first, Luke didn’t understand. Jess was almost sure he was just oblivious. While Jess gave him the cliff notes on what happened--much more than he strictly has to offer--Luke comprehended nothing. He must have been distracted because he kept responding by talking about the trip he and April are taking to visit over Thanksgiving. 

“Luke. There’s nowhere for you to come visit. Unless you want to stage a break-in.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Jess went downstairs to the giant dark, empty room that used to be something _._ He sat on the steps and felt particularly sorry for himself. 

“It’s over. Trucheon is just an empty room. My apartment is just a place I have to legally vacate in eighteen hours. But yeah, come for Thanksgiving, I’m sure someone is going to be in here cooking _something_. Has April ever seen heroin? That could be fun.” 

Luke went silent. Jess did too. Luke gave up first. “It’s that bad, huh?” he asked. 

Jess laughed hysterically. “Look, can I come? Stay with you? Just while I get first, last, and security. I promise I’ll graduate from high school. A month. Six weeks.” 

“Yeah. Jeez. Of course, you can. Come for a month, six weeks, get on your feet. You’re family. I could loan it to you too, if you want.” 

“Nah, I’ll earn my own way.” Also. Maybe. Maybe he liked the idea of going to some version of home. 

“How are you going to make money in Stars Hollow? You want to work for me?” 

“Uh, if you need help? Very badly. No, as long as you’ve got the internet I can make money.” 

“Writing a book?” 

“No, I’ve got lines on some other stuff. Need internet though. Have you cracked and joined the twenty-first century and gotten WiFi?” 

“Why what?” 

“Wireless internet. April must have gotten you to get it.” 

“Yeah. We have something. I’ve seen her use yahoo or woohoo or something, so I must, right?” 

“Yes. You must.” 

“Okay. Don’t worry kid. I’m here for you. I’ll tell you, I am glad you didn’t inherit Liz’s penchant for barging in. Not that overnight is much notice. But it’s better.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t a fan of that strategy of hers either.” 

“Don’t tell me, she showed up unannounced down there?” 

Jess rubbed his forehead and tried to understand what Luke had said. “What?” 

“Did Liz ‘drop by’ and push in? Use your ovens, take your blankets--”

“She’s never been here,” Jess said. “Get back to letting me stay.” 

“You can stay,” Luke said. 

“April there?” Jess asked. 

“Not yet. You’ve got until Thanksgiving with her space to yourself.”

“Oh no, Luke. Just blow up a raft. That’s all I need.” 

“Shut up. I’m guessing you can’t fit all your crap in that dumb little car of yours?” 

Jess felt irritation prickle over his entire body. “I’ll jettison what I need to.” 

“Or, your dear Uncle Luke can drive to Philadelphia and pick up the rest.” 

That was the closest he’d gotten to crying during this entire nightmare. Jess pressed his thumb against his nose and breathed. “Yeah. That’d be good. Unless--do you think being in a medium-sized city would be too much for you?” 

“You’re the one asking for a favor,” Luke reminded him. 

Luke’s apartment was permanent. And it was a better backup plan than he’d ever come up with. 

“You’re right. You’re my hero Luke.” 

“Jess.” 

“I’m serious,” he said, “Thank you.” 

* * *

Luke showed up and was reassuringly himself.

He arrived at quarter to ten. Jess was in the shower when he got let into the building. He stepped out--thankfully fully dressed, his towels were packed--to Chris enthusiastically reenacting the reading that got broken up by cops. 

“Ah,” he interrupted, “yeah yeah. Taking down the man with poetry. Very cool. Any chance you know where Jess is?” 

“Luke,” Jess called from down the hall.

Luke looked deeply relieved to see him, he was halfway down the hall before he remembered his manners and turned back to Chris, “Good to see you.” Once they were behind his bedroom door he pointed in Chris’s general direction and asked, “How much of that is true?”

“All of it,” Jess said, “Chris has a bad habit of telling the truth.” 

“He’s the one of you who doesn’t write,” Luke remembered.

“Right.” 

Then Luke started The Hug. They were terrible at it, but it happened at least twice per visit. Luke telegraphed his intention by looking over Jess’s shoulders and hovering a hand in the air like Jess was going to wiggle himself under it. Jess did his share of being terrible at hugging. He stood where he was until he was absolutely sure that this was supposed to happen, then stepped up to Luke and let the whole thing happen. 

When Luke was done and stepped away he nodded rapidly and for no reason. “You doing good?” 

“Great.” Jess said, “Best week of my life.” 

“Shit. Yeah.” 

“Thanks for coming though.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Can you help me with all this?” Jess asked, gesturing to the boxes on his desk, and the ones stacked perilously high by the door. “I got all my shit from the kitchen and living room in here. We just need to empty this room.” 

“Furniture?” 

“Giving it all to Chris’s sister for her school apartment. He’s handling it.” 

“So you’re leaving all of it,” Luke clarified. “You’ll have no furniture. 

“Yeah. All I need is a raft.” 

“Right,” Luke clapped his hands together and kept nodding. “Anything else you need help with?” 

“Just leaving,” Jess said, “Everything else is done.” 

It took an embarrassing number of trips to load up Luke’s truck and Jess’s sedan. Once they filled up the sedan, Jess felt increasingly mortified with each trip they took. It was too much. Just up the block from them was a truck Matthew’s dad rented for him, and Jess knew logically that Chris’s family has been making trips for weeks. But he _knew better._

For five disgusting minutes, Jess’s last box wouldn’t fit in either car. It was a small book box, and Jess knew it had first editions of all the books he’d published and all the notebooks that he hadn’t thrown out in other moves. It was the least valuable box but the idea of leaving it behind scrambled his brain. 

“We can take something else out,” he said, talking faster and louder than he meant to. “We can just trash another box. Any box. Fucking all of them. Just throw them in an alley. Set a fire. Seriously, I don’t give a shit.” 

Luke gave him a confused look. “We’ve hardly tried anything. Do you need a nap?” 

“Sorry,” Jess grumbled. Maybe he did need a nap. He didn’t even help Luke unload the right side of Jess’s backseat to collapse the seat, and easily fit the last box in. He sighed and felt aware of how wound up he’d been. “I gotta give Matthew my keys. I’ll give you directions to a vegan lunch place? Meet you there?” 

“Sounds good,” Luke agreed. 

There was a horrifying amount of emotion when Jess said goodbye to Chris and Matthew. He spent almost the entire time telling them to calm down. What he spent the rest of the time doing was nothing that would matter to history. 

At the restaurant, Luke did not comment on whether Jess seemed at all emotional, he just launched straight into a rant about the menu. And the hipsters. And the hanging plants getting in his face. And the traffic that was going to hit them on the way home. 

“Thanks, Luke,” Jess interrupted when he took a breath. 

“Yeah,” Luke said, dropping whatever was coming next, “I got you.” Jess nodded. “You told anyone else you’re coming?” 

“Nah, I wanna see if Taylor will actually drop dead this time.” 

“Ha,” Luke said sarcastically. 

“Rory’s not in town,” Jess added. “We haven’t talked in a while anyway. I figure you’ve told Lorelai. I texted April, but you beat me to her.” 

“Anyone else?” 

“Kirk? He hasn’t returned my letters for months.” 

“Liz.” 

“Oh.” Jess fell back against his seat. “You didn’t tell her?” 

“ _You_ didn’t tell her?”

“I only told _you_ last night. I wasn’t planning on telling her at all.” 

Luke shook his head. “No no no. Your mom’s doing really good, but you gotta tell her yourself. Call her on your way back.” 

Jess swallowed the urge to point out that he was twenty-four, not seventeen. But Luke didn’t need to spell out that word would get around town that Jess was back within twenty minutes of him arriving. If Liz found out from Ms. Patty, she’d have a cheerful meltdown that would last weeks. 

“Alright.” 

“Jess.” 

“I will. Jeez. What’s your status, by the way?” 

“What?” 

“You and Lorelai. Are you living with her or what? Or are we going to be roomies again?” 

Luke choked on his water but regained his stern composure quickly. “That was not a ‘by the way.’ That was not even close to a by the way.” 

“So you aren’t living together.” 

“We are. We are. Most nights. Functionally.” Jess raised his eyebrows which sent Luke into overdrive. “It didn’t make sense to get rid of the apartment. It’s about what makes sense. April needs her own space when she visits. And I have a lot of storage. Archives from the diner.” 

“Oh, _Luke._ ” 

“Jess,” Luke snapped. “You’ll have the apartment to yourself plenty. I’ll spend the occasional night there. When I have deliveries.” 

“You gotta just commit man. Can’t you see her face?” 

Luke was quietly irritable for the rest of the meal but Jess felt the best he had in months. 

* * *

On the drive back Jess would periodically get within a few cars of Luke’s truck, but there was no concerted effort to stay close. They drove through The Bronx. It was a distracting thirty minutes. Jess cycled between CDs before settling on playing the _Aladdin Sane_ reissue three times in a row. 

Hartford seemed like a good time to call his mom, so Jess did. He clicked through his contacts at a red light and called her number on speaker. He left his phone open on the dashboard. 

“You’re dying,” Liz said in a hushed tone the second she answered the phone. 

“What?” Jess asked. He immediately regretted making this phone call while operating large machinery. 

“Oh no. Oh, Jess. You’re dying, aren’t you? Is it cancer? God don’t tell me it’s cancer. I can’t handle that again. Is it lead poisoning? That one apartment we had with the peeling windows? What is it? You can tell me. I can take it.” 

“Liz.” 

She sighed loudly. “Well, I don’t know. You never call. Baby, what’s wrong? No gods I pray to would let my baby die, right at the height of your life. You are so happy. Wait! No! You’re happy. That’s it. You have good news! Oh, I knew it. I knew it. I got a reading, with the tarot, that said prosperity for my family! I thought it was because TJ got that job at the McMillan house. But I bet it’s you. I bet. What is it? Oh! You sold another book!” 

Jess learned very early in life to just let her go until she wore herself out. Liz continued to speculate about Jess's good fortune until she settled on believing that _High Windowsills_ got adapted into a movie and Jess got paid millions of dollars, and Leonardo DiCaprio was going to play Paulie, and _oh, God, I bet they’d let your mom have a cameo!_ And that finally stopped her. 

“Would they Jess? Do you think?” 

He cleared his throat. “It’s not getting adapted into a movie. It’d be a very boring movie.” 

“Oh no, I don’t think so. That one is my favorite.” 

“Thanks.” 

“So it’s not a movie?” 

“Not a movie. Uh. I’m gonna stay with Luke for a bit. We had to close the business.” 

“Oh _no oh no oh no.”_

Jess stayed silent while Liz cycled between mourning the business--which she still thought was a bookstore--closing, killing her baby’s dreams, to suddenly thinking it was the best thing that could have possibly happened in Jess’s life and recounting her favorite story about how Jess used to want to be a garbage truck when he was little and he used to chew wrappers while pretending to be one and--

Eventually, he had to tune it out. He turned back in when he heard Liz repeat a question: “Why don’t you stay with us?” 

Even since Liz moved to Stars Hollow, Jess always stayed with Luke when he visited. There was never even a question of anything else happening. “No, that’s okay,” he said. “You have the baby.” 

“The ‘baby’ is turning two in a few weeks. She’d love to spend some time with her big brother.” 

“I’ll visit,” Jess promised. “Don’t worry. We’ll see each other.” 

Liz was silent and Jess braced himself. He knew how much effort that took for her to do. Finally, “You promise I’ll see you? Tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Shit, he did not want to see her tomorrow. “Saturday. Day after tomorrow.” 

“The mailman will see you before I do!” 

“If I see him coming I’ll hide,” Jess said. “I’ll come over. I’ll see Doula. I promise.” 

He’d seen Rory do a maneuver where she cut herself off a few times quickly and then hung up to pretend she’d hit bad service to end a call. He knew he did not have the theatrical license to pull that off. 

“I gotta go Mom,” he said. Replacing ‘Liz’ with ‘Mom’ was the most theatrical he could get. Liz always got so distracted by it that she’d let anything happen. “I’ll see you Saturday.” 

“Oh! Okay! I love you. You’re my favorite.” 

Jesus Christ. 

Jess wasn’t a big believer in cosmic forces. But it felt right and just that after such a shitty morning and long drive, he and Luke were able to get all his boxes upstairs with minimal Stars Hollow bullshit. It was only five when they got done, but Jess was ready to pass the fuck out. Luke rearranged boxes to fit more compactly in April’s part of the apartment while Jess searched out sheets in the linen chest on Luke’s side of the apartment. He knew his sheets were still in this apartment. Luke threw nothing out. He came up with them and quickly changed the sheets on his bed. April’s bed. Whatever. 

“You sleeping?” Luke asked. 

“Yep.”

“You okay?” 

“Super.” 

“Regress in the last hour, did you?” 

Jess sat on the bed. “Luke. I am about to take my pants off. You wanna stay here and keep asking questions?” 

“You want me to make you something first? I’m still making sweet potato fries.” 

“I am beginning to disrobe,” Jess said loudly, kicking off his shoes. 

“Jeez,” Luke said, going for the door, “Can’t wait to see new and improved Jess in the morning.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a reference to the Mary Oliver poem of the same name. Google it. You'll cry. Jess would hate it. 
> 
> I started planning this during my first full Gilmore Girls viewing since high school. It was Liz's role near the end of the show that left me feeling how very complicated Jess' upbringing was, and how that influenced all him. That, and just the reality of getting on your feet at this age, will be themes in this. 
> 
> From the jump I want to acknowledge that while I was posting this, I saw that "Six Months" by Ziggy_Scardust has a super similar starting premise! I'm holding off on reading it to avoid accidental influence but I'm excited to when I'm done.


	2. Chapter 2

Luke alleged that there was WiFi. 

But he didn’t know which network name belonged to him. 

And he didn’t know where the router was. 

And no, Jess was not allowed in the kitchen to look because of _insurance._

He also refused to talk about the “technology mumbo jumbo.” 

So Jess spent most of Friday and Saturday in Luke’s apartment, copy editing Rivkah Haviv’s novel. She was his last termination call, and it was especially brutal because this was her first book and they were still working with her on it. She was from New York too, and she mentioned in their first meeting that her book being published was a dream she barely dared to have. 

They met at a coffee shop and Jess hardly had to say anything before she figured out what was up. She said, “You don’t own the rights anymore, do you?” 

“No,” Jess said, relieved she’d skipped about ten steps in this conversation. “They’re relinquished to you. You can shop it around again.” 

Rivkah smiled. “You were supposed to copy edit it for me.” 

“Yeah, but it’s no longer in our house.” 

Rivkah just tilted her head. “You were supposed to get it to me a month ago. So really, you should have already done it.” Then she stared. 

Jess decided that if he wasn’t about to cut and run and kill her dreams, he would very much like to date Rivkah. 

“I’ll edit it for you.” 

“At no cost,” Rivkah tacked on. 

“Uh--” 

“Yeah,” Rivkah took a sip of her coffee and put it down. “Pretty sure I’m right. I always am.” 

Then, Jess decided that even if he was about to run, he definitely could sleep with her. Rivkah agreed. Which ensured that he’d make editing her book his top priority. Rivkah was a genius, really. 

And it was something to do. He was a little disappointed when he gave the manuscript a final once over and saw no need for additional corrections. A few hours before he had to be at Liz’s, Jess went to the library to send it off to Rivkah, and to smoke out of sight of Luke’s diner. 

He emailed Rivkah her manuscript with his changes noted, and searched in his old emails for the contact information from previous gigs. Then he went to the library basement and psyched himself up to call them. 

Texting getting cheaper was the modern technology development that Jess appreciated most. Most conversations used ten times more words than were needed. Texting was his comfort zone. But business went better with phone calls. So he called three connections and left voicemails letting them know he was available for work. 

While the phone rang for the last call, heavy steps came down the basement steps. Jess couldn’t hold back a smirk as Taylor came into view, already scowling. 

“Hey Valerie, it's Jess Mariano, Micah’s friend. Just calling to let you know I’m looking for jobs, I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Call me any time. Now actually. My ringer is way up. Thanks.” 

Taylor pressed his lips together and glared so mightily that it was clear he expected Jess to burst into flames. 

“Hi,” he said, closing his phone. 

“Young man. You are breaking town law.” 

“Huh.” 

Taylor huffed. “The library is a local tax-funded institution. As such, following the Municipality Integration Support Agreement of 1973, aka MISA 1973, policies at locally funded organizations are de facto laws. Therefore, I can call the police right now and have you arrested.” 

Jess hadn’t moved from where he was sitting with his bag on the table, and decided to stay right where he was, even with Taylor towering over him. 

“Which law?” 

Blotches on Taylor’s face turned red. “Using a phone in the library.” 

“So you can call the police right now and have me arrested.” 

Emboldened, Taylor took his cell phone out of his pocket and dramatically showed Jess the keypad. 

“That’s right.” 

“You’re gonna stand there and call the police.” 

“That’s _right.”_

“So you’re going to insist that they arrest you too,” Jess clarified. “Since you are breaking that same law.” 

Taylor sputtered and Jess stood up and grabbed his bag. “I can break the law,” Taylor shouted after him, “I am seeking justice.” 

Jess decided not to accuse Taylor of fascism. Even though he’d just made it so. damn. easy. This was already going to have annoying repercussions, so he begged off. “Why don’t you find whoever stuck all that gum under the table and have them executed?” 

Taylor followed him up the stairs. “I’ll have you know, every law that was in place when you were a young hooligan is still in effect. If you are going to live here you have to follow each and every ordinance, policy, and law.” 

“That’s how society generally works,” Jess said, not looking over his shoulder. It wasn’t surprising that word had gotten around that Jess was staying, not visiting. The plethora of boxes gave off that impression. 

“Young man!” Taylor yelled. 

Jess was almost out of the library, but he realized he had created a problem. If Taylor told Mrs. Cunningham that Jess broke library rules, he’d lose the only spot with free WiFi he knew of in Star Hollow. Jess remembered when Mrs. Cunningham called the diner twenty minutes after he returned a stack of books, just to chew him out because he returned _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay _with a ketchup stain on the back cover. 

Inwardly dying, Jess turned around and went to the circulation desk. 

“Hey,” he said. Mrs. Cunningham startled so badly, her short grey curls kept twitching after she composed herself. “Sorry. I made a phone call downstairs. Is there some consequence to that?” 

She squinted. Taylor hurried up behind Jess. “Mrs. Cunningham, he broke the law! We need to toe a hard line--” 

“Stuff it, Taylor!’ Mrs. Cunningham yelled. Now Jess was the startled one. “Get out of here. You make more problems for me than anyone else.” 

This was the best moment of Jess's week. 

“Mrs. Cunningham--” 

“And you,” she said, rounding on Jess, “Learn to wash your hands before you handle my materials.” 

Christ. “Yes ma’am.” 

Taylor went on explaining how Jess had endangered the wellbeing of their entire community and Ms. Cunningham went right on screaming back while Jess slipped out. 

Luke had better cough up the WiFi information soon. 

Jess found the spot behind the library where he went to smoke during high school. It was one of the number of spots he’d found that were out of view and quiet. Away from Stars Hollow bullshit. He knew damn well that Taylor was at the diner right this minute whining to Luke. 

Jess hadn’t teased his hair four inches high in the better part of a decade. When April settled into the apartment space, Luke shipped most everything Jess left behind to him. Band t-shirts from New York and a few old overshirts got integrated into his wardrobe, which followed a formula most days. He wore some kind of t-shirt, usually one with a graphic but not always. Over it was a monochrome flannel shirt, or a decent work shirt. Depending on the pants, shoes, and number of buttons employed, Jess could pass anything from a serious professional to a college slacker. If he was clean-shaven that dipped younger, so he was never clean-shaven. 

But in his head, Jess was sure that every person who looked at him saw a poor, furious, no-good teenager. He radiated fear and fury and it seemed like everyone he met must know it. When he saw an adult in the mirror, he had to remind himself that it was really him. On every layer, except for one annoying vulnerable one, Jess knew he wasn’t that kid anymore. 

Stars Hollow though, they saw him as a furious, no-good teenager. Every one of them, every day of the week. Jess debated a third cigarette and tried to calculate exactly how long he’d be here. 

Any answer that didn’t include robbing a bank was too damn long. 

Fuck. 

Jess went back to Luke’s. 

He walked right past Taylor lecturing Luke. Jess patiently sat on the couch and waited for Luke to storm up there with an out of control Taylor rant. Just a few minutes later, Luke came thundering up the stairs. He flung the door open and stormed in, growling under his breath like he was a character in a bad movie. 

“Relax,” Jess told him. 

Luke paced across the living area. “I can’t relax. There are six billion people in the world who will never know Taylor Doose. Six billion people who will go their entire life, not knowing how lucky they are because they will never know a life that’s not _free of Taylor.”_

“1.35 billion people living in extreme poverty,” Jess supplied. 

“And they’re free of Taylor,” Luke grumbled. He fiddled with his hat and seemed to catch hold of himself. He pointed at Jess. “We gotta set some ground rules. You were sleeping all day yesterday, we gotta talk now.” 

Jess was not sleeping all day. Luke just steered clear, and Jess suspected it was to avoid bringing Lorelai near him. He let the lie slide. “Like what?” Jess asked. Luke shifted from foot to foot, and Jess could practically read his mind as he considered whether it’d be more effective to tower and yell, or sit down.

“Luke. Act normal.” 

He sat down and gestured for a few seconds before starting. “No smoking in the apartment for one. That’s a big one.” 

“Yeah, I’m not.” Chris was a stickler about that. He had the nose of a bloodhound. Even if Jess stuck his head out his bedroom window, Chris would be there knocking on his door saying, “Jess? Should I smother you in your sleep to accelerate this process?” 

Chris was for sure one of the top three people he’d lived with. 

“Oh,” Luke said, “Okay. And minimal antagonizing. Taylor. Or anyone.” 

Fuck. Seriously? 

“Jesus, Luke. I was making a business call. I’d do it here if you were living in the twenty-first century. If that’s enough to throw this town into crisis, that’s not my fault. I’m just trying to get things in order and get on my way.” 

Luke nodded. “Yeah. Alright. And by the way, on the phone the other night you promised to graduate from high school.” 

“Oh come on.”

He didn’t waver. “Hey, maybe you were joking, but that was always a condition of you living with me. One you never delivered on, mind you. You owe me.” 

Jess rolled his eyes. “I think it’s a little late for me to join the class of 2009 at Stars Hollow High, Uncle Luke.” 

“You know I mean your GED.” Jess did know that. “It’s ridiculous you haven’t gotten it before. You could probably show up and pass it tomorrow. Think of all the jobs you can’t get.” 

“Nothing I do for a living requires it,” Jess said. 

Luke stood up, hands on his hips like he’d just succeeded. “Those are my terms, kid. If you’re here for longer than a month, you’d better have a GED before you go. I promised you. Remember? I promised you.” 

He didn’t get more specific, but he didn’t have to. 

Jess remembered that night when he first came that Luke snapped. It was his second, or third night here, and Luke just showed up, yelling. He grabbed a lit cigarette out of Jess’s mouth and threw in on the floor. He didn’t even check if he set the place on fire, just started yelling. At that point in his life--hell at this point too--the _last_ thing Jess expected out of someone yelling in his face was a list of sappy promises. 

He didn’t process what Luke said until he’d been walking around town for twenty minutes. 

_I am not letting you just fall off the face of the earth. You will not drift, I won't let it happen._

At the time Jess didn’t believe a word of it. Now, he felt a little guilty for not holding up his end of the deal.

“You did promise, just three days ago,” Luke reminded him. 

He did. “Okay. I will get my GED if I’m still here in December.” 

“Yes?”

“Yes.” 

“Good.” 

“May I ask a question?” 

Luke grinned at his win and nodded. “Please.” 

Jess pointed at April’s area. “What the hell, man?” 

The last time Jess had been here was five months ago, at the beginning of April's time with Luke for the summer. As far as Jess could tell, she spent most of the month spread out on the floor of her area, assembling a Lego Taj Mahal. Jess felt he was sufficiently cousinly by offering to help, and driving her to Hartford to pick up additional pieces to “increase the accuracy, because if you put this right next to the _actual_ Taj Mahal, there would be glaring differences.” 

It was hilarious how easily she’d talked Luke into turning the apartment into a Target ad. April’s area was covered in area rugs, accent pillows and framed vintage ads. But since he’d last visited, a room divider appeared, resting against the archway that led to her area. On Jess’s first night here, he unfolded and found that it spanned almost the entire archway and was a few inches taller than him. It was kind of amusing, how he’d never thought to ask for anything like this when he lived here. 

Luke followed where Jess was pointing, taking in the stacked boxes and Jess’s laptop sitting at the end of the bed. “What?” 

Jess got up and pulled one panel of the room divider out. “Are our family values changing? Because this looks dangerously close to privacy." 

Luke smacked him in the shoulder. “She needs it. She’s a teenager.” Jess raised his eyebrows. “She’s a _girl.”_ Luke waited for Jess to respond and huffed when it didn’t come. “You never complained.” 

To be fair, Jess did not remember complaining. “You wanna make it up to me?” 

“Make up for knocking down a wall and buying a building to give you your own space? Sure, how can I make it up to you, Jess?” 

He put the divider back and sat down on the bed. “Come with me to this thing with Liz?” 

  
  


He shook his head and pointed to the door. “Lorelai is expecting me.” 

“Bring Lorelai. Liz loves her.” 

“Jess,” Luke cut him off. “She’s your mom. You need to make an effort.” 

The statement hit like a fucking mallet to his head but Jess ignored it. 

Being an adult, he’d learned, was largely based on ignoring it. 

* * *

Right as he was leaving, Luke handed him half a cherry pie with cellophane over it, which Jess carefully placed on his passenger seat for the drive. 

Liz and TJ lived in the opposite direction of Rory’s house. The houses near them were a little closer together, and a little more standard. That said, TJ and Liz broke the mold pretty quickly after moving in. The last time Jess had visited, Liz was in the middle of painting a rainbow on the front of the house. TJ was at war with Taylor for digging a giant hole in the front yard for a swimming pool. 

When Jess pulled up to the house, he clocked that the swimming pool project had been reduced into a two-foot deep crater with painted rocks lining it. Jess got out of his car and walked up to it and looked over the painted rocks. He could see which Liz had done. Pastel colors with details as fine as a spider web. It was a tossup which of the simpler ones were TJ or Doula’s. 

“Jess!” 

Liz bolted out of the house and hit him with a hug that could break ribs. Jess got the pie out from in front of him just in time to avoid it splattering all over himself. He held it over Liz’s shoulder and hugged her with his other arm. Liz held to him tight. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered. 

“Hey,” he said. He wasn’t sure if Liz was better at this than Luke, but she sure was more enthusiastic. 

Liz let go of him and touched his face. “Just checking,” she said, smiling. 

Inside, TJ literally pulled Jess’s jacket off of his body and manically showed him the slap-job of a coat rack he’d made. Then he forced a “beer my boy Sal made in his basement,” into his hand. But Jess nodded and didn’t make any jokes. He sat on the collapsing couch by the fireplace and held a tofu satay on a napkin and prayed that would be polite enough, and he wouldn’t have to eat it. 

“Where’s Doula?” he asked. He was pretty sure almost two-year-olds weren’t supposed to be alone. 

TJ raised his eyebrows. “Oh geez. I guess we left Doula at the market, didn’t we Mom?” 

Jess’s brain caught fire trying to figure out if this was a joke. 

Liz squinted. “Oh yeah. Should we go get her?” 

Joke. 

“I don’t think so,” TJ said, “We’ll give Jess all her toys.” 

A tiny child crawled out from behind the couch Jess was sitting on. “No!” she shouted. She was wearing green fairy wings and giggled as she climbed on TJ’s lap. “My toys.” TJ squeezed her, but she was already wiggling down on the floor, squealing, “Again!” 

Liz and TJ repeated the joke, word for word. Only this time when Doula burst from behind the couch, she stood in the middle of the room, looking between Liz and TJ, and Jess.

“Remember your brother Jess, baby?” Liz asked. 

“Chss,” Doula repeated. 

“That’s right,” Liz said. She caught Jess’s eye and pointed spastically at Doula, mouthing _Say something._

“Hi Doula,” he said. 

Doula looked at him curiously. She walked over and stroked Jess’s pants over his knee, then giggled again. She turned back and chattered, “Daddy, daddy, daddy,” and climbed on TJ’s lap. 

“It’s okay," TJ said, “some people are just bad with kids.” 

“Yep,” Jess said. 

“No,” Liz said, shaking her head, “no Jess loves her. That’s all we need.” 

He did love Doula. He loved her immediately when she was a squishy loud baby. It was the least complicated love he’d experienced. But he had no fucking idea what to do with her. 

“Does she go to school?” he asked. 

“Oh yes!” Liz said. "Well. No. Not school school. Three mornings a week she goes to Ms. Wang’s daycare, just to work on her social skills. The pediatrician said it’s good for them to interact with other kids, that kids who go to daycare do better later on. But we can’t afford full time, and we don’t need it anyway. She’s got a whole play place in my studio, we spend all day together. I got her big beads so she can make jewelry just like mommy.”

“Jewry!” Doula said. She held up her arms proudly to show bracelets made with large round beads. “I made. Look! I made it.” 

“Cool,” Jess told her. 

“She’s very creative,” Liz said. “Just like her big brother.” 

  
Thankfully, TJ ran out of patience after a few minutes and they moved to the kitchen and the table with mismatched chairs. Jess sat at a splatter painted plastic chair between Liz and Doula. Doula seemed to enjoy climbing more than anything else in life, she giggled the whole time she got herself sat in her booster seat. 

Liz came out with a pot of something that Jess recognized immediately, by smell alone He leaned over a little to take in the chili with elbow pasta, beans, and corn. 

“Pasta chili,” he said. 

She laughed happily. “Yes! Your favorite.” 

It was his favorite. 

“Thanks, Liz,” he said. 

She smiled proudly and ladled a serving into a bowl that she passed to him. TJ came back from the kitchen with a frisbee-like plate with the ingredients of the chili separated into tiny bite sized pieces and put it in front of Doula. 

Jess stared at the plate. It was blue, with raised sides that kept Doula from spilling as she worked hard to spear pieces of corn with a small, plastic pink spork. It was so normal, so competent, that he couldn't look away. 

“Jess,” Liz interrupted. “Try it. Tell me if it tastes the same.” 

The chili tasted jarringly familiar and Jess was hit with memories of the apartment that Liz invented it in. He was about eleven and after they ran, they got a real apartment of their own. It was one room, furnished. Liz gave Jess the lumpy bed, and she slept on the couch. Money was tight but Jess would rather live on food pantry rejects as long as they were alone. Their regular place was a church that handed out randomly assembled items in prepared bags. Liz had a talent for turning the random expired food they got stuck with into brand new foods. She invented candy cane marshmallow pie, and Jess was still convinced that she was the first person who made black bean brownies.

The pasta chili was the result of Liz coming home in a bad mood, with a particularly crappy assortment from the food pantry. In a fit, she threw them all in a pot, and halfway through called over her shoulder, “What do you think about chili, Jess?” 

“Good,” Jess said. He wasn’t paying attention. He was sitting in the hallway that led to the bathroom, reading.

“Go to the neighbors and get me some cumin and chili powder.” 

Jess stuck his head out of the hallway and saw her dumping a can of something into a big pot. “What are you doing?” 

“Just do it, Jess!” 

Jess’s trek through the building was not successful, in part because he didn’t know what cumin and chili powder were. He came back with red chilis the size of his fingers, and a stale slice of chocolate cake. Liz accepted them with the panache of a master chef. She just chopped the chili so much it almost became a paste and Jess’s eyes got watery from where he was watching from the edge of the counter. She scraped off dry chocolate pieces from the cake and threw them in too. 

The pasta chili was the best thing Jess had ever tasted. He ate two bowls to Liz’s delight, and snuck another bowl in the middle of the night. She tried to teach him how to make it over the years, but there was some kind of Liz x-factor that he couldn’t replicate. 

“Do you remember when I invented it?” Liz asked. 

“Yeah,” Jess said, “Did you get a real cake for the crumbs?” 

Liz grinned. “It’s our dessert. TJ and Doula like it too, don’t you?” 

“Yeah,” TJ said loudly, “Lizzie’s got the gift. If you told me I’d eat something with pieces of chocolate cake and tomatoes in the same bowl I’d say, ‘Forget it!’ and think it was my idiot brother telling me. But it’s my wife! And it’s great!” 

“It’s good,” Jess agreed. Liz hummed happily. He felt a little guilty for how excited Liz was that Jess was praising her. He tried to remind himself that Liz had an endless supply of happy. For her, giddiness was a given, not an extreme. 

“And Doula likes it,” Liz said, reaching over the table to grab the fork from where Doula had thrown it to the middle of the table. “Not again, missy,” she warned her. 

Doula chewed the wrong end of her fork and used her free hand to move corn and pasta to keep them from touching each other. TJ reached and popped it out of her mouth. Doula smiled and said, “I like it. I like it.” 

It was weird, how Doula was like a baby and a real person at the same time. 

“So Jess,” TJ burst in, “the recession got you. Don’t feel bad. You’re not the first person to go down. Not me, of course. People can’t get enough of me, and your mom’s jewelry is doing better than ever.”

How was the stupidest man Mom ever ended up with the one that was going to last? 

At least he seemed good with Doula. 

Liz put her hand over Jess’s and he jumped a little. She responded by petting his hand like it was a scared animal. “What TJ means is, he can help you find a job.” 

“Yeah,” TJ said, “you got construction experience? They don’t let just anyone do it.” 

“No,” Jess said, psyching himself up to talk more to head this off. “I do some contract work. Copy editing--that’s editing for clarity. I do tech manuals, when I need money. I’ll get jobs doing it. It’s just a matter of time.” 

“Sounds boring,” TJ said. 

“I’ll muscle past that,” Jess said, feeling himself tire out all at once. Probably all the talking. Luckily that was enough to send Liz and TJ into a frenzied discussion of every typo they had seen in their entire life, and Jess didn’t have to say a word for the rest of dinner, and cake too. 

While TJ and Liz were debating the best way to load the dishwasher, Doula wiggled out of her booster seat and climbed up onto Jess’s lap with frosting covered hands. 

“Fuck,” Jess said, watching in dismay as she smeared white frosting over his pants and shirt. “Doula--”

“I have tattoo,” she told him, grabbing onto his shirt for leverage and holding her right arm up to show off a dirty princess tattoo. “I’m Aurora.” 

“Oh,” Jess said.

“I have princess hair,” she told him. She demonstrated this by raking her hands through her hair and holding it up, which the frosting now covering it definitely helped with. Jess wasn’t sure if he was allowed to put her on the floor to try to go clean the frosting off his shirt, or if that was a terrible thing to do to a baby. 

Liz intercepted before he had to decide. She plucked Doula off his lap. “That was silly, Doula! Look at your brother, he’s all messy.” 

“It’s fine,” Jess said. 

“Well of course it’s _fine,”_ Liz said, and she walked off, singing an invented a song about frosting hands while she carried Doula upstairs. 

Recognizing his chance, Jess put his plate in the dishwasher and poured the untouched bottle of basement beer down the sink. He headed for the door and took his coat off the rack and pulled it on. 

“Hey,” TJ called from the living room. “Sneaking out?” 

Jess was exhausted. He was not going to get through this without messing up somehow. “Just getting ready.” 

“Because you’d break your mother’s heart.” 

“I think my mother’s heart is a little more resilient than that.” 

TJ didn’t move from where he was standing by the fireplace. “She’s doing really good, your mom.” Jess couldn’t hold back a snort. “What?” 

The standard requirement for assessing another person is that the person doing the assessment is more capable and insightful than the person being evaluated. TJ wasn’t equipped to assess a stick on the ground. 

“Nothing,” Jess said. “I can tell. She’s great with Doula. You too.” 

Liz came downstairs and hurriedly gave Jess a tupperware full of pasta chili. She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re so handsome.” 

“I’ll see you soon.” 

“You know,” Liz said, “Lorelai sees her mother every Friday, for dinner. Maybe we outta do that?” 

“Maybe.” 

* * *

Luke was at the apartment. Lorelai was dealing with something with her mother, so their date was cut short. And. 

“I figured I’d see how you’re doing. After Liz. TJ. Everything.” He grinned at the white frosting smeared on his black shirt and pants. “That good huh?” 

“She’s doing great, right?” Jess said, grabbing a shirt and sweatpants and heading for the bathroom, “Of course it was great.” 

“Did Doula do that to you?” 

“TJ.” 

“Hey, good for you! Getting a little more friendly with the man.” 

There was a six-pack of domestic beer, and a football game on. Despite neither of them being particularly interested in either, was easy to just sit with both in silence for a while. During a commercial, Luke told an elaborate story about why he was spending the night here, instead of Lorelai's. Jess got the feeling it was more for his benefit than any relationship problem. 

“Liz seems good, doesn’t she?” Luke eventually asked. 

Jess took a sip of his beer. “TJ offered me a job in construction.” 

“Oh good. Yeah, any construction site managed by TJ involves a 60% chance of death, but you should go for it.” 

“I made some calls. I’ll get some work soon.” 

The game came back on, but Luke picked up the remote and examined it before hitting the mute button. “Why don’t you write a book? Stay here as long as you need to, focusing on your writing and go for the bigger payoff.” 

“That’s not how it works,” Jess said, “for a small press like ours, money comes much later.” 

Luke scratched the back of his head with the remote. “But there are big ones. Where it does work that way. Rory told me about it. They pay for the book up front.” 

Jess sat up. “Rory is writing a book?” 

“No,” Luke said, “Well, maybe. No, I think she was writing an article about how the economy is changing publishing.” 

“And she didn’t call me,” Jess joked. 

“I didn’t know you were having problems,” Luke said, “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me, but you didn’t.” 

Jess sighed. “Whatever. She could write a fucking book about the death of Trudgeon.” 

“Well fine, you can ask her to over Thanksgiving. Unless you wanna do it yourself.” 

He rubbed his eyes. It was still light out when he got home, and with only a few lights on the apartment was dark and he was tired. “I don’t have any stories anyone wants to hear. I’ll do better telling other people where to put their commas.” 

Luke shrugged. “You’re the expert."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think


	3. Chapter 3

Jess drove back to Pennsylvania to vote. He stayed to watch the election results come in at their usual bar with Matthew, Chris and some friends. Between speculating about Ohio, Jess debunked rumors that he was living on a pig farm. He accepted Matthew’s invitation to come for Thanksgiving. Anika, his ex-girlfriend as of September, was there. Obama won in a landslide and they closed out the bar, drunk and happy. All the guys went to Micah’s apartment to crash out, too tired to argue over who got the couch.

In the morning he asked Micah to use his computer to check the news. There were tons about the election, but he couldn’t find anything Rory wrote. He did a few more searches and found her piece about journalism a few months back, but nothing else. Maybe she just wasn’t getting a byline for the Obama stuff.

“My ex-girlfriend was on the campaign trail,” he told them when he brought Micah’s laptop into the kitchen to return it. Chris was making pancakes and searching for Micah’s good spatula. 

Micah took the laptop and grinned in an exaggerated way. “Oh cool. Cool. What’s your ex-girlfriend’s name?” 

“Ror--” 

“Rory Gilmore,” Micah finished. “You talked _all_ about her and how she was probably _right there_ the whole time.” 

Oh Jesus. “I _talked?”_

“Anika loved it,” Micah asked, grinning. 

“Crap _.”_ Jess rarely got drunk, and his friends treated it like a national holiday when he did. “Did I talk to her?” 

Chris chimed in. “I’m not sure if what you did could be considered talking. It was more like you were describing the Bush administration, just in case no one had heard of it, and also your super amazing _other_ ex-girlfriend, while Anika tried to kill you with her mind.” 

Shit. “And you didn’t stop me.” 

“We tried,” Chris said. “I love it when you drink. It’s like watching one of those British castle guards flinch.” 

* * *

Jess spent a week debating going back to work at Walmart. 

There were ads on the radio for hiring events for “the holidays.” 

Walmart was a monument of labor violations, and worker exploitation. The most transparently corrupt corporation in America. 

He got a decent number of editing jobs, but they always passed quickly. And it’d be weeks before the invoices were paid. And he was bored.

Monster.com was lacking in “less than high school” jobs that were any better than Walmart. And at least if he went to the one he worked at in high school, he’d know where everything was. 

The hallmark of a good job. 

Jess got so painfully bored that he got in his car, and drove to Walmart for the hiring event. 

And left. Of course. 

But that’s exactly how bored he was. 

He even considered studying for the GED. December was fast approaching with no sign of a magical relocation. Jess went to the bookstore to kill some time browsing. He lingered in the test prep section for a few extra seconds. By the time he got back at the diner, word reached Luke. He followed Jess upstairs, pointed at him, and yelled, “Very glad about this, very glad.” 

A GED prep book appeared in the apartment twenty-four hours later. 

Jess was so extremely fucking bored that he actually opened it.

“Did I have any friends when I lived here?” he asked Luke when he came in to take a break, just as Jess was getting ready for another exciting pointless walk around town. “People who might not run if I got near them?”

“Does Officer Krupke count?” 

“There must have been someone,” Jess said as he leaned against the wall to put his shoes on. “Someone who invited me to huff paint.” 

“You pretty much had a policy of blitz attacking anyone who got near you with snide insults and sometimes, actual attacks. Including me.”

“Sorry.” 

“You pretty much just had a one-track mind on Rory.” 

Yeah. That’s pretty much what his life here looked like. “At the moment, Doula’s birthday party last week was the highlight of my social life.” 

“You’re a lot less of a shit now,” Luke said, “Hey, sit down with me for a sec?” 

“On my way to run a marathon here Luke.” 

“Jess.” 

Jess put his coat back on the hook and took a seat at the kitchen table with Luke. “Am I grounded?” 

Luke grimaced. “Uh. You know April is coming in a week?” 

“Yeah. I’ll get my crap out of her way, change the sheets.” 

He nodded and rubbed over his face. “Good. Good. Good. Uh. So I’ll be staying here while she’s here. And she’ll be in your space--her space--both yours I guess. It’s a small apartment. For three people. I know--I know I said you could stay, and you _can,_ just right after, but for that week--” 

“I’m the opposite of grounded,” Jess joked. Luke grimaced and rubbed his chest. He was melting down like he thought Jess was going to start crying or something. This was just social norms. Luke had to put April first because she was a kid, and she was his kid. He interrupted to get Luke off the hook. “It’s fine, I already knew I’d be out next week.”

Luke had a mini-stroke. “Just for the week! And not kicking you out, not at all. Keep your stuff here, just stay with your mom for a few days. Then come right back.” 

He hit the table with the side of his fist. “Luke, relax. I’m going back to Philadelphia and staying with Matthew. It’s already set. I heard a rumor they use silverware, like a real family. Just tell me when the coast is clear.”

“Stay with your mother.” 

“No thanks.” 

That pivoted Luke from pathetic to defensive. Any implication that their family wasn’t perfect seemed to offend Luke on a base level. “Jess, c’mon. It’s a mile away. Your mom isn’t some abusive demon. She’s weird. Weird is fine for a week.” 

It wasn’t that Jess felt bad for himself. He didn’t have an unusually bad childhood. But he sometimes wished he had a fact sheet he could hand out in situations like this. With stats on what actually happened. Jess spent seventeen years watching her charm her way out of trouble. Liz could set someone else’s kitchen on fire, and five minutes later she’d have them laughing and apologizing to _her_ for delaying dinner. 

It made Jess the asshole for remembering the fire. 

If he could just hand people something that they could read and understand why he didn’t love his mom, maybe they’d stop making him pretend things were normal. 

“This isn’t a sulky thing,” Jess said, because the fact sheet didn’t exist. “It’s my choice.” 

“Jess, she’s your mom.” 

“And she’s your sister. Do you want to go spend a week on her couch?” 

“I spent an entire summer in a tent next to hers.” 

“Oh wait, is my opinion legitimate if I can beat that? A summer was it?” 

“You’re going to miss April. You’re going to miss _Rory._ Just because you refuse to--” 

“Luke. Stop.” The tea kettle went off, whistling sharply. Luke got up and turned off the burner. “I’m not psyched to miss Rory and April. Maybe I’ll drive in for a day.” 

With a grumble, Luke grabbed a mug out of the cabinet. Then, after a moment of thought, took out another mug. “You can’t afford all that gas.” 

Jess watched Luke as he delicately took two peppermint tea bags out of a box, and draped the thread part over the rim of the mugs, and poured the steaming water in. So carefully. 

Jesus Christ.

“You already told Liz I was coming?” 

Luke spun around “Well so what if I did? Is it so crazy to think that a son would want to be with his mother on Thanksgiving?” 

“ _Fuck,_ Luke.” 

Luke came back to the table and put a mug in front of him. He smacked Jess's hand when he reached for a mug. “Four minutes.” 

“Are you trying to kill me? Why would you ask her before me?” 

“You snore really loud, Jess.”

“What?” 

“We can’t all sleep here.” 

“You snore too.” 

Luke waved the words away. “April is talking nonstop about you taking her to some board game store. You will disappoint her if you’re not here. You want to see Rory. It’s not that complicated, nephew.”

Neither Matthew nor Liz were particularly mature, but in the landscape of his life, bailing on Liz would be a much bigger problem than cancelling on Matthew. 

Shit. Alright. 

“I get it,” Jess said. 

Seven days was nothing. He was being a baby. The biggest issues would be TJ being TJ. And Doula crawling all over him. And as annoying as it was to hear, over and over, she _was_ doing good. Liz was stable. 

And even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter all that much.

* * *

April’s arrival brought a very welcome change of routine. Jess heard her talking as she came up the stairs. She was talking as she let herself in the apartment, with Luke two steps behind her, holding her coral colored duffle bag. It gave Jess plenty of warning to hide the GED workbook under the couch.

“Hey, cousin!” she said, waving. 

“Hey.” 

“I got bumped up to first class.” 

“No way.” 

“Yes.” She dropped her enormous backpack next to her bed and kicked off her birkenstocks. “I was with the gate agent because my mother told them I was an unaccompanied minor. Which, fun fact, Ariel--that’s the gate agent--told me my mom must have elected for me to be considered a UM because now that I’m fifteen I don’t have to be one. So I’m torn about next time, because on one hand, I would like to go to Hudson News and buy Skittles without someone watching me, but on the other hand, I always meet really amazing people, like Ariel. 

“Definitely something I’ll have to evaluate, but anyway I was talking to Ariel about the timeline of smoking being phased out of airlines and she was so impressed that when they had a seat in first class, she said I was the only one who deserved it. I got Orangina, and as many packets of peanuts as I wanted.” 

“Awesome.” Jess double-checked that the GED book was fully under the couch, then got up and hugged her. April talked all the way through it. Jess stepped away wondering if their family was ever capable of doing that normally. 

“Definitely,” she went on, “It’s how I want to travel from now on. I’ll either have to get really rich or remain a charming unaccompanied minor for the rest of my life. Or maybe a charming woman, I bet Lore--” 

“Get rich,” Luke said, moving behind her to drop her bag on the other side of her bed. They were able to move most of Jess’ boxes into the open space by the door, but some of it was still encroaching on April’s alcove, limiting floor space. “That is the only method you will be using. Honey, I gotta get back to the diner. I bet Jess will take you to get those smoothie ingredients.”

“Okay,” April said. She turned back to Jess, “I’m getting really into smoothies. I’m not sure Doose’s has quite what I need.” 

“That’s fine,” Jess said. 

Luke gave her a--for him--relatively unawkward hug and headed out. April sat down and pulled her backpack onto the bed. 

“Sorry about the,” Jess waved at the boxes. 

“I don’t mind,” April said, pulling her iPod and leather wallet out of her bag. “It was your room first. It’s like having an annoying older brother who is back from college.”

April elected to skip Doose’s, because “they probably don’t have dragon fruit.” They headed to Mayfield. 

Moving here, back then, after a lifetime of virtually never leaving Manhattan was like being shoved inside a snowglobe. He didn’t have a schema for unicorn figurine stores. The high schools he went to in Manhattan didn’t have ponds next to them. Everyone didn’t talk to each other like they were characters in a short story that ended in ritual suicide. Just being there was work. 

A few weeks in, Luke dragged him on a run ten minutes outside of town to Mayfield’s massive supermarket. The size was nothing he’d see in Manhattan, but the apathy with which people walked past each other was a goddamn relief. This place wasn’t featured in any charming story about small-town living. It was the only place he shopped now. An anonymous teenager chucking his eggs in a plastic bag was the easiest part of Jess’ week. 

While she slowly made her choices in the produce section, April confessed, “I could have gotten a lot of this as Doose’s. It’s just like a _thing_ to go in there, you know?” 

“Yep.” 

“Like I go there, Babette is happy to see me, which is nice! But then Kirk tries to talk to me, and as interesting as that can be, it’s not fun? And people get upset that I don’t want to talk to them!” 

“The whole town is a freak show,” Jess said, accepting the bag of bell peppers she handed over and putting them in the cart. 

“I know why we feel that way,” April said, walking backward in front of the cart. “It’s because we were socialized in different environments. Hartford and Manhattan. Because we have more urban cultural markers.” 

“Yeah, the bustling metropolis of Hartford,” Jess agreed. 

April put limes in the same bag as her lemons, then panicked and emptied the limes on top of some potatoes, and went to find another produce bag. “I really like Albuquerque. It’s my place, for sure. I never fit in with the East Coast snobbiness. Stars Hollow kind of doesn’t have that, but it kind of does. It’s complicated. Have you ever been to New Mexico?” 

“On a bus. Think I slept through it.” 

“You would not like it.” 

Jess laughed. “Probably not. I like my East Coast snobbiness.” 

She filled the cart with produce, then picked up yogurt, and the kind of snacks Jess and Luke didn’t keep in the apartment. She hated their snacks. She picked up bagged sea salt popcorn, Oreos, and a huge bag of dried mangoes. When they got back, she insisted on making a smoothie that would “rock his world.” 

Jess loved April the same as he loved Doula. Automatic, nothing interesting or confusing. And he had a much better sense of how to work with a fifteen-year-old than a two-year-old. He knew it was okay to decline the smoothie and finish the GED practice test. 

“Hey April, wanna hang out with me all day tomorrow?” he asked while he packed up the stuff he’d need at Liz’s. 

“Uh, I was going to hang out with my swim friends. You could come, but you are a grown man.” 

“Jesus, no thanks,” Jess said, “I am a grown man, after all.” 

* * *

In a twist worthy of the Twilight Zone, Liz had WiFi. 

He didn’t think to ask until the second night there. Liz insisted he get up before TJ left for work so they could have breakfast all together. TJ talked the entire time, chewing didn’t stop him. Jess split his time that day between Luke’s and the library. Where Mrs. Cunningham kicked him out two hours before closing because she wanted to start the library’s Thanksgiving closure early. 

Growing up, he used to leave wherever they were living the second he woke up, and stay out for fourteen, sixteen hours at a time. New York apartments were crowded by necessity, and it was never a given that he'd have a bedroom with a door. Slipping into the city anonymously was always more privacy than “home” afforded. It was easy in Manhattan. Even if he never had more than a few bucks at a time. There were bookstores, record stores, libraries, parks. No Taylor Doose. 

Staying out in Stars Hollow was too much work. The day before Thanksgiving--the day before Rory came back--was empty and difficult to fill. He was exhausted when he got back at what he incorrectly guessed was past Doula’s bedtime. He spent an hour sitting on the couch trying to read while Doula did her best to untie his boots and pull them off his feet. 

TJ finally showed up and bellowed, “Bedtime!” and Doula ran up the stairs. It was blissfully quiet aside from the refrigerator hum. Liz came down in dalmatian pattern pajamas a few hours later. 

“You need anything honey?” 

Jess got a text earlier from Valarie to check his email, after Mrs. Cunningham kicked him out. “Uh, do you have the internet? It’d be a cord you plug into a computer, or wireless.” 

Liz laughed. “What, you think I’m just like my brother?” Jess’s head just about fell off as she retrieved a post-it from the kitchen with the WiFi network information. She sat on the couch next to him as Jess pulled out his laptop and logged on.

“I have an online store! Let me show you.” Liz asked, settling in with a bag of pita chips. 

Jess was surprised enough to pass over her laptop without protest. Liz easily opened Internet Explorer. 

“I’ve never seen you use a computer,” he said. 

“I took a class, I’m practically a hacker. Look,” Liz copy and pasted a link into a new tab and gasped dramatically. Jess couldn’t help but laugh, and she grinned. “My friend Big Dagger made the website, but I know how to add listings on my own. I’m a badass.” 

“You are,” Jess agreed, leaning over to look at the website. It was very green. She scrolled past pictures of necklaces. “This is cool, Liz.” 

“Thank you, baby,” Liz said. “I had someone order a bracelet last night, someone in Israel. Can you believe it? People in Israel want my jewelry. It’s a trip.” She smiled. “I’m sorry. I’m being braggadocious” 

“Eh.” 

Liz prodded the back of his head. “Hey, you should have a website. When people read your book they’ll think you’re brilliant and want to contact you.” 

This was so much easier without TJ. It was always so much easier when it was just them. 

“Don’t tell anyone okay?” She mimed zipping her lips and swallowing the key. “I have one. Just stuff about the books, my email. I get like four emails a year.”

She crinkled the Pita chip bag and bounced in her seat. “Just wait. You’re going to be so famous. You’ll get so many emails. So many. I bet, you know what, if we just got the right person to talk about it Regis or something--I really like _High Windowsills_ the most, did I tell you that? You writing about New York, it’s right. It’s just right. Isn’t it weird that we’re here after all our lives in New York? That sandwich shop that Paulie went to in the book, that was based on that place that Vic worked at, right? Remember? He said he’d give you a job then you had that big fight and--well he didn’t. But I could tell that’s what it was.”

Sometimes if Liz got excited at night, she got this snowballing energy that was impossible to stop. She'd talk all night, play music, get halfway through making brownies, then cry uncontrollably. It was a nightmare. Jess took the laptop back and stowed it in his bag and stuffed it behind the couch. “You should go to bed, Mom.” 

“I want to see your website. I bet it’s all boring, and I can help you.” 

“Another time.” 

Liz groaned and got up. “You know I thought with you staying here, you’d be staying here. I barely saw you today.” 

“We’re doing Thanksgiving tomorrow at Lorelai’s,” Jess said. 

She sighed and looked him over. “Luke did his thing, didn’t he. Manipulated you into staying here. You didn’t want to.” 

“Go to bed, Mom.” 

She rubbed her forehead and walked toward the stairs. Halfway there she turned around. “You know, I really hope Doula never does that.” 

“What?” 

“Tell me to go to bed. I hope I don’t have this relationship with her.” 

What the fuck was he supossed to say to that?

“Okay,” Jess finally said.

“Okay,” Liz said. “Good night, Jess.” 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lived through 2008 and I still had to do so much Googling. This isn't going to be six parts, I'm liiiiingering too much to be done in three more! 
> 
> If you're here, I'd love to hear what you think. I think this is a pretty quiet fandom but comments arethe best!


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